Reforming Village-Level Governance via Horizontal Pressure : Evidence from an Experiment in Zimbabwe

Baldwin, Kate ; Muyengwa, Shylock ; Mvukiyehe, Eric

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: village government;    institutions;    accountability;    foreign aid;    civil society;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7941
RP-ID  :  WPS7941

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

How can patrimonial local-levelgovernance be reformed? Debates on this topic have focusedlargely on the possibility of reform via pressure from above(superordinate leaders) or below (citizens). This papertests whether horizontal pressures from civil societyleaders can reform local governance in a context whereneither of these mechanisms operates effectively. The studyanalyzes an experimental intervention in Zimbabwe intendedto reduce abuse of power by village heads. Analytic leveragecomes from the fact that the 270 study villages wererandomly assigned to two variants of the intervention, onein which only village heads were trained on the frameworkgoverning village leadership, and one in which civil societyleaders were trained alongside village heads. The resultssuggest that horizontal pressure from civil society leadersincreased village heads' knowledge of and compliancewith regulated procedures, improved their management ofissues and raised citizens' trust in their leadership.A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the mechanismsthrough which the trained civil society leaders had theseeffects suggests they accomplished reform by directlyapplying social pressure on village heads to abide by regulations.